Listening to her speech is a struggle, my own thoughts drowning out the words. I realize in the moment that the focus on myself killed the romantic relationship between us in the first place. No surprise there. Selfishness always murders love. At some point, she mentions my name, reclaiming my attention. Our eyes meet across the distance. She smiles at me, nearly chokes up for half a second, and continues with her litany of thanks. I retch on the inside.
Afterwards, Ella and the Governor pose for a series of photographs with family, friends, and other judges. I maintain my vigil from afar. A man puts his arm around Ella in a move of intimacy—no doubt Trevor Newman, her new love interest. I remember Ella’s telling me that Newman is a federal prosecutor in the public corruption section of the Justice Department. That gets me to thinking.
I feel a gentle touch on my arm and turn to find Cate at my side. Our second date last night ended like our first one—kissing in the front seat of my car. In the light of day, things are more professional. She says, “That was nice what Judge Kemp said about you.”
“We were trial partners for five years. We made a good team.”
“Anything else between the two of you?”
Her smile poses a teasing challenge. I answer with a riddle.
“More than you know, but less than you think.”
She laughs and drops the topic. Instead, she says, “Are you interested in visiting your Mom this weekend? I’m staying with my mother, but I hate the drive. If you were heading that way, I could hitch a ride.”
“The whole weekend?”
“Friday night to Sunday after church.”
My visits home these days are always day trips. Mom might have a heart attack if I stayed over for the night. But the possibility intrigues me, the eagerness to spend more time with Cate growing.
I say, “Let me get back to you. Things are happening in the investigation, and I might not be able to get away. But I’ll try.”
Her eyebrows perk up at the mention of the investigation, and I wince at the unpleasant task still before me, wondering if I’ll even be on the case at the end of the day. Another judge approaches Cate to initiate a conversation, and I retreat back into the shadows.
While Ella still poses for photographs, Trevor Newman stands off by himself waiting for her to finish. I introduce myself to him, and we talk for a few minutes. He gives me his card. I hear the calling of my name and turn to see Ella beckoning me up to take a picture with her and the Governor.
As we get situated for the photograph, she wonders, “I saw you talking to Trevor. What was that all about?”
“I might have some business for him.”
She looks confused for a second until recognition dawns on her. “Interesting,” she comments.
My smile for the camera is genuine, the feel of Ella’s hand on my back providing an extra little charge. Cate stands talking to someone in the background, and my eyes focus on her.
So much of life is random—love most of all. Somehow Amber and I ended up in the same college class. Somehow Ella and I wound up working together. Somehow Cate and her mother decided to attend my brother’s church. The things that we presume to be in our control are not. But we are not powerless in the tide of events. I lost Ella through my own choices and emerged to find Cate on the other side. Did I come out ahead?
Ella hugs me and says, “Thank you again.”
The next person steps up to take a picture with the guest of honor. I lean into Minton before I go.
“We have to talk. Can I swing by your office when you’re done here?”
“Sure thing.”
Judge Mary Woodcomb comes over and we both observe Ella—Woodcomb’s new colleague on the Fulton County bench. Mary notes, “I know how proud you must be.”
“Make sure you show her the ropes. She couldn’t have a better role model.”
“You’re quite the flatterer.” She pulls me further away from the crowd and says in a quiet voice, “Missed you today, but Ms. Hsu did an excellent job in your place, and you got your wiretap on you-know-who. I hope I don’t live to regret it.”
“That makes two of us. I was meeting this morning with Jerry Dalton.”
Mary makes a noise that I take for sympathy. She pats my arm in a gesture of solidarity and whispers, “Be careful.”
Heading over to the Governor’s office, I see Cate and Tommy Dalton talking amicably as they exit the building together. I stop dead right in the middle of the corridor, watching them until they are gone.
25
The ceremony over, I approach Martha, sitting at her desk outside the Governor’s office. She offers me a cookie. For probably the first time in my life, I decline. She spies the worry on my face.
“What’s wrong, honey?”
“Why did the Governor make me come back up to this place?”
She sighs, “I know what you mean. Things aren’t the way they used to be. Everyone is so nasty now. The Governor feels it, too. That’s why he thought of you—you’re a link to a time when politics was fun and a decent man could make life better for folks. You remind him of the good old days.”
“That was my father, Martha. Not me.”
“There’s a lot of your father in you, Chance.”
She means it as the highest compliment possible, but the darker parts of the comparison are what worry me. Those thoughts are too troubling to contemplate in the moment, and I change the channel away from any introspection.
I realize Martha probably knows things about what happened with Daddy that few others do. I feel her out.
“How did he ever end up with Susan Benson?”
Her face sinks. She says, “You’re not supposed to know about that. I gave the Governor a good talking to about letting that slip.”
“But now I know.”
The sympathy in her eyes is the stuff of angels. A tear starts to emerge, and Martha dabs it away with a tissue. She then starts the story.
“Mac Meridian was one of the finest men I ever met. You remember that until the day you die. What happened is that the weight upon him became too much. Your mother had breast cancer, and I sat in the next room while Mac broke down in a fit of tears confessing to Minton his fear that his wife was going to die. He loved her something fierce, and he couldn’t stand the chemo eating away at her. He wanted to quit and go home, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She refused to be the cause of him not being governor. He had worked too hard. Both of them had. On top of that, the juvenile justice bill was Mac’s signature legislation, and getting it passed nearly killed him. He was worn down. And that woman was there.”
Martha’s tone makes plain her opinion of “that woman.” She goes on, “Honestly, I think he did it to keep from having to be governor. The walls were caving in on him, and he needed an escape hatch. The affair was his way to take himself out of the running.”
“That’s a helluva way to go about it.”
She doesn’t argue the point.
The period when Mom had breast cancer is a blur when I survey the past, and the juvenile justice bill is a total blank. I had just started high school and was too busy lusting after girls. My lasting memory of the cancer is once having to drive Mom to the doctor because she was too sick to drive herself. No one else was around to do it. I was fourteen at the time—the thrill of being behind the wheel as exciting as dreaming about cheerleaders.
Minton enters and pats me on the back. I follow him into his office with heavy legs. Martha calls after me, “Don’t forget what I told you.”
***
The Governor assesses me with a hopeful look, almost as if he expects good news. But this is not that kind of meeting. I get on with it.
“I have a problem that I hope you can help me with.”
“Absolutely. I told you I had your back. You name it, and you got it.”
“We’ve talked to all the justices, the caterers, everyone that was there that night, even Senator Parsons.”
“You caught the killer?”
“Not yet. Here’s the thing, Minton. All those people and not a one of them made any mention of seeing you.”
He reacts as if I had punched him in the gut. My words aren’t quite the whole truth. Jerry Dalton told me he saw the Governor but only after the murders. That detail led me to realize that no one saw the Governor before the fact. Minton recovers his bearings in good haste and flashes a big grin, but the uncertain fear lingers a step behind. He’s hiding something.
“By God, Chance, you’re good. I knew in my bones that you were the right choice to lead this investigation and that you would get to the bottom of it. But you can take my word for it that I didn’t kill Warren Jackson. My activities at the time have nothing to do with the case.”
I shake my head.
“Not good enough. Not this time. Your security people stayed downstairs during the party. We learned that early on. Only way they stay downstairs is on your say-so. You then go upstairs never to be seen again. You already told me that Warren Jackson ‘needed a good killing.’ And you appointed me to head the investigation—someone you’ve known since the day he was born and who would never bat an eye in your direction as a possible murderer. Those are damning facts, Minton. The truth or I quit. That’s the deal. No negotiation.”
Discomfort wrinkles his face, and the weariness makes him look old. He recognizes the strength of my position. Ella is now a judge, his leverage over me gone. This time, he has to play by my rules.
He groans, “I was with Susan Benson in her chambers.”
“She told me she was alone.”
“Susan was protecting me. We’ve been seeing each other.”
The admission physically weakens him, and he slouches down in his big chair as if any effort to sit up would consume too much of his energy. My thoughts are harder to gauge. I knew that Minton didn’t kill Warren Jackson, but I had no clue what he was doing otherwise—except that a love affair with Susan Benson wasn’t on my bingo card. I wonder what Daddy would think. The Governor feels the need to explain.
“I’m an old man, Chance, and never figured on having to live life without my Ruth. I also had to keep running this state on top of everything. I was tired and lonely. Susan was an old friend. Over time, she became something more.”
The personal reasons don’t concern me, but the story requires confirmation, and Minton needs to stay out of the way. I put it to him.
“I’m going to walk over to the courthouse to talk to Susan Benson right now. I would appreciate it if you did not contact her in the five minutes it takes for me to get there. Can you do that for me?”
He nods.
“Is that a yes?”
“Yes. I won’t steal the element of surprise from you, but I’m telling the truth.”
“Does Martha know?”
A shake of the head tells me no, and I feel his fear from across the desk. Martha’s low opinion of Susan Benson must be well-known to him. Minton will retire in two years, and I surmise his plan is to run out the clock before Martha ever finds out.
But woe to Minton if she does.
As I stand to leave, Minton pleads, “Go easy on Susan, Chance.”
I make no promises.
26
“You lied to me.”
Susan Benson’s reaction to the accusation is neutral. She gives away nothing and no doubt that same cool detachment served her well as she macheted her way to the pinnacle of a man-dominated world.
She answers, “Did I?”
“You did.”
“About what?”
“About being alone in your office at the time of the murder.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Because the person you were with told me the truth.”
Her reading glasses hang low on her nose, and she studies me over the top of them.
“Why would he do that?”
“I didn’t give him much of a choice.”
Benson removes the reading glasses and wipes them with a cloth. Satisfied, she lays them on her desk. Only then does she look at me again.
“What do you want me to say?”
“I need you to confirm his account.”
“Consider it confirmed. Did he tell you the all of it?”
“He told me that the two of you have an ongoing relationship. Is there more to it than that?”
She doesn’t answer and instead looks out her window at the State Capitol. Without warning, she slams a fist down on the desk but then rubs her hand from the resulting pain.
“Damnit!”
The burst of emotion is sudden, and I steel myself against a possible second wave. But the tide recedes.
“Sorry about that. The past couple of weeks have me swimming in too many emotions—Warren’s murder, seeing you at the funeral, lying to you in your investigation. So many different forces colliding inside of me. And at the core of everything—my memories of Jack. I know you don’t give a damn, but I loved your father—loved him enough to settle for being his mistress, loved him with such passion that in my worst moments I hoped that your mother would die from cancer. That’s a horrible truth that I have never admitted to another living soul until this moment. You can hate me in good conscience now. But that’s how much I loved Jack. I would even have resigned from the Supreme Court to be his wife.”
My face darkens at what she says about Mom, but the anger doesn’t come. I feel sadness more than anything. Much like our first meeting, she has more to say.
“Except one day the clock struck midnight, and he went home to his family, where he belonged. He never talked to me again. I couldn’t even go to his funeral for obvious reasons. But I got drunk for the first time in decades when I heard the news.”
I remember little about Daddy’s funeral, certainly not the guest list. Ben and I teamed up to do the eulogy. Minton said a few words, too. I recall a lot of tears, not much else. Amber and Mom both wore black. I remember that.
“Now Minton is the man in my life. The relationship is a good one. We enjoy each other’s company, and that’s enough. I know that his regard for me will never match his feelings for Ruth, and he knows that he’ll always be number two behind Jack.”
Just like you’ll always be the runner-up to my mother. I bite my tongue on that one. The bully role never much suited me, except maybe sometimes on cross-examination. Instead, I blurt out, “Do you always talk this much?”
She bursts out laughing in a blast that releases much of the emotion trapped inside of her.
“No! Just with you! I’m renowned for being circumspect. You merely sitting there unleashes in me an urge to spill my guts. I’m now the bad lawyer who doesn’t know when to shut up, the ones I’ve chastised for three decades during oral arguments. It started at the funeral. I gawked at you in front of hundreds of people—a total loss of composure. I couldn’t help it. Even now, I want to explain and justify everything that happened. But listening to myself, my rationalizations are vulgar and futile. I’m unrepentant but still want some type of acceptance from you. It’s completely messed up. Do you still hate me?”
I shake my head and answer, “There’s no profit in it.”
And that’s the truth. Hate festers like an open sore destined for infection. What’s the point?
No, I don’t hate her, and a newfound softness in my face toward her confirms the veracity of my words. We size each other up again. Without explicitly negotiating the terms, the semblance of a truce rises between us. She asks, “What now?”
“Now we both live with it.”
***
Before I head home to put the finishing touches on the Corvette, Scott and I meet up in the squad room. Cate has an event to attend, removing any temptation to fit in another date. When I explain the Governor’s presence in Benson’s chambers and the reason for it, a stare of disbelief occupies Scott’s face for a full fifteen seconds. We both agree to remove the two of them from suspicion—bringing our working total of primary suspects down to nine.
I name them off, “Senator Cl
ement Parsons. Beverly Jackson. Gene Davis. Tommy Dalton. Jerry Dalton. Aurora Winnett. Gary Winnett. Larry Miller. Adam Lumpkin. Is that right?”
“That’s right, but Beverly Jackson didn’t fire that gun, I’m telling you. Have you ever fired a 9mm? Too much recoil.”
“Solve the recoil problem, and maybe you can solve the mystery.”
“We’ll keep her on the list to humor you.”
He directs me to a timeline written out on a whiteboard that summarizes the investigation:
5:52 p.m. Daltons and Davis meet with Chief
6:10 p.m. Beverly Jackson arrives in chambers
6:10 p.m. Daltons and Davis leave chambers
6:30 p.m. Senator Parsons arrives in chambers
6:30 p.m. Beverly Jackson leaves chambers
6:50 p.m. Senator Parsons leaves chambers
7:00 p.m. Senator Parsons enters landing
7:10 p.m. Lumpkin enters landing
7:30 p.m. Beverly Jackson screams
I say, “We’ve interviewed everyone, and the only solid evidence we have points to Gene and the Daltons. But where’s the motive? And why kill him in the courthouse with witnesses all around? Simpler to have Jerry sit outside Jackson’s house in a sniper’s nest and take him out that way.”
“You’re wrong about something. We didn’t interview everyone. Aurora Winnett refused to talk to you. We know she had an affair with Jackson, and we know her husband Gary wasn’t happy about it. We also have the ‘AC’ texts. Either of them had plenty of opportunity. Right down the hall.”
“But not as close as Adam Lumpkin right next door.”
Scott shakes his head and counters, “No way I believe one judge is going to kill another judge just because they disagreed about the law.”
“You haven’t met the guy.”
He doesn’t look convinced. I add, “And let’s not forget Larry Miller. He’s one of the few people actually observed moving around at the party. Could’ve easily slipped back there without catching any attention. Jackson rode him pretty hard apparently. Maybe he snapped.”
“I could buy that he snapped in the heat of the moment, but that would mean Miller was already carrying a gun around with him. That I don’t buy.”
Death to the Chief (Atlanta Murder Squad Book 2) Page 12